Jerusalem Post wrong to give platform to convicted Holocaust denier

Australia’s B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC) has expressed its disappointment with the Jerusalem Post for giving David Irving a platform to express his abhorrent views.

David Irving Pic: Wikipedia

During the interview, which centered on Irving’s a nine-day tour of former Nazi death camps in Latvia and Poland, the convicted Holocaust denier explained the purpose of his tour and described those who paid to join his tour as, “People confused by the conflicting versions of history, who want to ask questions: why the Jews were victims, and what is the truth”.

When asked about the spike in anti-Semitism, Irving replied

“The Jews should ask, Why us? Maybe it’s how they have acted over the thousands of years. Maybe it is all our fault.”

Dr Dvir Abramovich, Chairman of the ADC, issued the following statement:

“This was clearly poor judgement by The Jerusalem Post. Holocaust deniers such as David Irving should not be given exposure and publicity and should not be furnished with a respectable forum such as The Jerusalem Post to again insult the victims and survivors and to desecrate the memory of the Holocaust with his perverted and discredited lies.

Perhaps the Jerusalem Post should be reminded of High Court Judge Charles Gray’s original finding that David Irving is an “active Holocaust denier”, “anti-Semitic and racist” and one “who associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism” as well as the statement of Justice Malcolm Pill during the Appeals Court decision that, “it was fair to describe Irving as one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial.”

It would have been prudent for the Jerusalem Post to quote those findings in the body of the interview so as to alert readers of who David Irving really is.

Editors should exercise greater care and responsibility, and should not provide an audience and the unwarranted credibility of an appearance in a noted publication for such a bigot and a falsifier of history.”

In the interview in reply to the question as to whether he made money out of the Holocaust, Irving said he was “a historian and writer, not a travel agent” and that some years he broke even and some he made a profit.

Stephanie Courouble, a specialist on Holocaust denial who gives seminars at Yad Vashem on the subject, writes in Huffington Post,

“Throughout the history of international Holocaust denial, few interviews with deniers appear in mainstream media. To interview them is a double-edged sword in which the journalist achieves little. Either he manages to carry out his interview and to raise reader awareness of a falsifier of history, or the journalist fails by providing an open forum to a Holocaust denier who is presented as a victim and/or defender of historical truth.

I am surprised that The Jerusalem Post allowed itself to be caught in David Irving’s game.

First, these guided tours of concentration camps organized by Irving are a farce. Any associations that attempt to oppose them might be successful in banning them, in which case Irving could claim to be the victim of censorship, gaining publicity in doing so. On the other hand, if these tours are not banned, Irving creates media buzz in the camps. In short, one way or another, he wins.

There are two ways to respond to deniers: either to refute their allegations with Holocaust facts and proof, or to unmask them by exposing their extreme ideology. What did The Jerusalem Post do, except give him free advertisement for his guided tours of the concentration camps?

How should historians, associations, and activists who fight against Holocaust Denial react to this interview? If we don’t react, we leave the door open, creating a dangerous precedent. However, if we react with public condemnation, we only increase their exposure.

Comments

Why shouldn’t the holocaust be open for historical revision? On a material level, it is an event like any other.

I believe that the number of Jews who died in Auschwitz has already been downgraded from 4 million to 2 million to 1 million to less than a million, and then the status of the “gas chamber” that the tour guides show you was officially downgraded to an air-raid shelter (inexplicably converted from a gas chamber to an air-raid shelter by the nazis, according to the tour guides).

IT EXPLAINS MUCH ABOUT THE ABOVE BY ‘BONDI_JEW RE THE SYSTEMIC DIMUNITION OF THE DEEDS OF NAZI MASS – MURDERERS!!!

”Historical revision” is simply a derivation of the above. And let it be understood the salami plays an eternal part

Then we have the freedom of speech entities – as mentioned by myself below.
This too is a dangerous arena for historians to allow to exist unencumbered.

Well before we get to the outright deniers of the historicity of the holocaust we see them creating outrageous scams and frauds to defend the indefensible.
THUS they attempt at rewriting the greatest mass – murder in history.

Come to think of it – it is all salami tactics.

May we have enough people who stay vigilant against what is merely one of the multiple evils of our time.

Each era has it’s own evil when it comes to Jew hatred.
Indeed the BDS promulgators have moved ‘the salami’ to the point that they freely justify anti – semitism: see the below quote and link from May 2013:

”The PM et al also signed the London Declaration on Combating Antisemitism, Professor Syuart Rees response? ‘’Childish, thoughtless but easily populist”.The Australian 14/5/2013
Plainly he demands the right to be anti semitic. And unpopular? Very unpopular?

I finish this unusual work by asking: would any academic at a major university in Australia have dared to to defend his right to be anti – semitic a mere 5 years ago?
Then 10 years ago then? GET MY DRIFT?

Hey – I just demonstrated another classical salami – tactic….

Years ago we came to be aware of Jew hatred in Communist regimes even if Stalin and subsequent cohorts claimed to be non racist.
This no longer has to be proven.

Sad is it not that it is the ‘LEFT’ in so many realms who plainly encourages the world’s oldest hatred.

I notice that those who claim that the Nazis xommitted ‘the greatest mass murder in history’ still ignore the 4 million to 10 million Ukrainians starved to death by Stalin in 1932-1933 and the 38 million Chinese starved to death by Mao Tse Tung in 1958-1962. I wonder why that is ? Is it because they just want to ignore the suffering of others ?

SHAME ON YOU MR RICHARD MALLETT!
IT TOOK YOU AGES TO COME UP WITH THE OLD QPQ / SINE QUA NON – ORIGINAL DISGRACEFUL RESPONSE!
SHAME ON YOU!
You should disappear from this blog or never be allowed to comment!

YOUR COMMENTS HAVE NO REDEEMING FEATURES SAVE HOLOCAUST DENIAL!

AND DEAR EDITOR – THE PURPOSE OF THE ARTICLE WAS TO POINT OUT HOW PATHETIC JERUSALEM POST WAS IN GIVING IRVING A FORMAT: SO KINDLY DO NOT GIVE SAME TO HIS IRVING’s APPENDANTS / APPENDAGES~!!

ORTHERWISE MALLETT WILL surely / of course you will use the other scam – the freedom of speech excuse.
I REFUSE TO FURTHER RESPOND.

I repeat – there are no justifications for publishing MALLETT AND / OR CRONIES OF THE DENIALIST FRINGE.

No it does not: they have zero credibility and you know it!
You are giving the holocaust deniers oxygen via your dubious postulations and clear motivations.
I impeach your said motivations: the web shows you admire David Irving!
Even if it was ex 2008 – basis a quick search!

http://hungarianspectrum.org/2008/08/01/the-hungarian-far-right-and-david-irving/
Richard Mallett
August 3, 2008 at 3:23 pm
”It should also be noted that David Irving also wrote an excellent book on the 1956 Hungarian uprising, called ‘Uprising – One Nation’s Nightmare: Hungary 1956’ which was described by Ferenc Kunszabo, editor, Hunnia magazine. Budapest, as ‘the best work on the 1956 uprising in the English language’”

NOTE MR MALLETT:
THE VAST MAJORITY of decent people do not accept even the act of debating the veracity of holocaust denial. It is essentially akin to contemplating whether Hitler’s murder of 6 million of my brethren was not enough!

”May his name be obliterated”

I wonder why you should think this ‘reasonable’ I could suggest a few tangents – but will leave to others to contemplate better descriptors.

AND YOU MR MALLETT SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF THE REMOTEST THAT FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN IRVING CONTEXT IS A UNILATERAL RIGHT!

However I proffer merely one example of Irving’s modus vivend’: it relates to this professional Jew hater claiming that Anna Frank’s Diaries were a fraud.

In a letter to the Australian newspaper in the early 1980’s Irving insisted that the biro marks therein proved it so.

All who know appreciate that Otto Frank made the biro marks in his daughter’s diary! Irving was easily debunked.

Irving had the gall to repeated this sickening scam a decade later: the same debunking took place.
of this professional fraud.

Australian media no longer accepts communication from this entity.
So – what does the Jerusalem post think it is doing?

IT HAS ‘FORM”.

In 2012 it published a list of the world’s top 50 Jews – including a bizarre list of Israel bashers like George Soros and Peter Beinart and more.

SOROS WAS HONORED by JP FOR HIS CHARITY WORK!!

WHEN WILL THEY EVER LEARN?
Why do they do this?
Jerusalem P defending Irving’s right to free speech to insult the memory of the greatest mass murderers in history? murderers?

Just for the record, David Irving is not a convicted Holocaust denier, since it is not against the law in Britain to deny the Holocaust. He brought a libel case against Deborah Lipstadt and her publisher Penguin for calling him a Holocaust denier in her book, and lost.

It is also worth noting that Justice Gray’s widely quoted adverse comments on Irving came right at the end of his judgement in the Lipstadt case. They weren’t quite “out of the blue”, but the judge made no attempt to link them to any of the proceedings. They appeared to be no more than Gray’s personal opinion, delivered from the Bench.

However, Irving is indeed a convicted Holocaust denier. He was convicted of Holocaust denial in Austria and served time for it. He even wrote about it in his “Banged Up” (2007).

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